1811 research outputs found
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Incorporating Climate Change Resiliency into Urban Planning: Green Infrastructure in Boston and Copenhagen
Get PDFCities face a unique challenge in dealing with climate change due to an increased risk of flooding and the urban heat island effect. Natural climate solutions and the use of green infrastructure techniques provide an opportunity to meet these challenges. My paper examines how cities are integrating climate resilience principles into existing institutional structures for stormwater management. I analyze barriers to the adoption of green infrastructure and how climate adaptation can facilitate meaningful community engagement and climate justice through a comparative policy analysis of two case studies: Copenhagen, Denmark and Boston, Massachusetts, USA. I interviewed 14 professionals from different backgrounds to get a holistic perspective on stormwater management and climate adaptation in each city. These interviews provided insight into the motivation behind green infrastructure adoption and how that influences the support for these techniques. The main challenge identified with implementing projects was the horizontal collaboration between city entities. Representatives from both cities expressed the importance of engaging with communities in designing projects to maximize the co-benefits of green infrastructure. However, cities must also consider the prioritization of projects and green gentrification. As a result, urban planning for climate resiliency will require collaboration across city entities and within the community. Responding to climate change is a dynamic process that challenges the static tendency of urban planning and policymaking. With limited time to act, lessons from cities that have undertaken these steps are key to informing the critical climate action of other cities
Leveling the Playing Field: Examining the Perceptions of Social Justice and Activism Among DIII College Athletes
Get PDFHistorically, college campuses have stood as hotbeds for activism and agents of social change. However, despite the extensive study of college activism, the intersection of activism and college athletics remains a relatively unexplored territory. Deficits currently exist in research for DIII athletics, in particular. To address this gap, this study, by using qualitative interview data, attempts to tackle the question: How do college athletes in a DIII college understand and perceive social justice and activism in relation to athletics? This investigation revolves around four key themes: social justice understanding and identity, team perceptions of social justice, the role of college athletics, and challenges to social justice. Within these themes, I find that while the DIII college athletes in my sample overwhelmingly view the concepts of social justice and activism favorably, they struggle with the practical implications and ramifications of actualizing these beliefs into practice. Various factors such as the framing of social justice, team dynamics, and competing values influence the perception of social justice and activism among DIII student-athletes
Preservation or Innovation: The Impacts of Colonialism and the Economy on Traditional Moroccan Crafts
Get PDFArtisans of traditional crafts in Morocco face extreme exploitation from middlemen/resellers and are unable to make a living by producing their crafts. As a result, these strongholds of Moroccan and Amazigh (Berber) culture face extinction as artisans are forced to leave the craft fields to pursue other job opportunities. While the economic structure of the traditional craft sector plays a large role in perpetuating this exploitation, these structures stem from French colonial policies. Previous research addresses the direct impacts of French colonialism on Moroccan traditional crafts but fails to address the legacy and continuing impacts, or coloniality, of colonial policies on today’s artisans. I employed document research, and informal and semi-structured interviews, conversations, and participant observation with female artisan weavers at the Anou Cooperative in Fes, Morocco, and Fatima Oulad Thami, a Moroccan-Dutch henna artist, to illuminate the connection between the French colonial recategorization of Morocco’s traditional crafts and the exploitation of artisans and stagnation of craft development in Morocco today. My argument is threefold. First, the French colonial recategorization of the Moroccan craft sector led to the disempowerment and marginalization of artisans as creative forces. Second, a transfer of power within the “coloniality of being” hierarchy facilitated the exploitation artisans face at the hands of middlemen/resellers. Third, artisan-run initiatives, such as the Anou Cooperative, act as decolonial forces that grapple with ideas of preservation and innovation while creating a sustainable future for the Moroccan craft sector
Bridging the Urban/Rural Divide: The Interconnected Factors Shaping Policy Preferences
No full textUrban and rural areas in the United States are frequently perceived as immensely politically divided. Prior research proposes competing hypotheses that drive the political polarization between these two populations such as media portrayal/political rhetoric, socioeconomic class, and inherent geographical differences. This study examines the many factors that influence healthcare and welfare policy preferences among urban and rural communities. I conducted ten in-depth interviews with residents from urban and rural areas in New York, and discovered that factors such as class structures, place, and political tactics are all actually interconnected in driving the political polarization between urban and rural residents. Results show that instead of these influences working separately, political polarization between urban and rural areas is driven by their combined effects, working in tandem. These findings suggest that efforts to address this issue should take into account the complex interactions between these factors; a narrow focus on one factor is unlikely to be effective in reducing political polarization between urban and rural areas
The ‘People’s Home’ for who?: How Social Distance Influence Swedish Politicians’ Views on Immigrant Groups
No full textCertain migrant groups are received negatively by their host countries compared to others. This may be because feelings of social distance influence sentiments towards certain migrant groups. In addition to feelings of social distance, colonial history and incompatible cultural values may be contributing to these feelings amongst Swedish politicians. To examine how social distance influences Swedish politicians’ responses to immigrant groups, I compiled research on over 130 Swedish news articles to determine how the social psychological theory of social distance changes depending on the culture of migrants’ country of origin. As expected, Swedish politicians have increasing feelings of social distance towards non-European and Muslim migrant groups and have lower feelings of social distance towards European migrants. The Muslim identity had the largest impact on shaping politicians’ feelings of social distance and influenced their opinions on these migrants
(In)visible Subjects: Pranlal Patel\u27s Women at Work in Ahmedabad, India, 1937
No full textApproximately one hundred photographs of women at work in the city of Ahmedabad, India, were taken in 1937 by Pranlal K. Patel, at the request of the premier women\u27s social reform organization, the Jyoti Sangh. Rather than depicting women\u27s contributions as peripheral to the productivity of Ahmedabad\u27s economic life and isolated from the public, Patel pictured women as subjects working in the city\u27s major marketplaces and as integral to the city\u27s industrial productivity. This article argues that historical photography may provide what Elizabeth Edwards terms a “historiographical think-space” that challenges conventional historical sources and the narratives they produce. By engaging Ariella Azoulay\u27s ethical spectators in the civil contract of photography, historians can use historical photography to confront the historical roots of inequality that shape our world today
“This imperfect scrawl”: Neighbor Maria G. Ham Remembers the Canterbury Shakers, 1839-1908
No full textSometime between 1915 and 1925, the then elderly Maria Gerrish Ham (1833–1925) corresponded with Oakes K. Lawrence (1899–1971), the young son of former tenants who had rented a farmhouse on her family property in Canterbury, New Hampshire, fifteen to twenty years earlier. Ham’s property abutted the religious commune in Canterbury owned by the United Society of Believers in Christ’s Second Coming, commonly known as the Shakers, one of America’s most enduring communal religious societies. The Ham family had been neighbors of the Shakers since the founding of the community in the early 1790s. Maria was their neighbor for seventy-six years, had good relations with them, and counted dozens of Shaker brothers and sisters from the village as friends and acquaintances. One of the letters from Ham’s correspondence with Lawrence survives and is mixed in with Canterbury’s town records in the collections of the New Hampshire State Archives in nearby Concord. The unpublished eight-page letter is a reminiscence of Ham’s dealings with Canterbury Shakers, providing remarkable insight as to how their neighbors, and Ham in particular, a close friend and ally, interacted with them during the peak years of the community’s history
Frederick Williams Evans’s Letter to Alcander Longley in the Phalansterian Record
No full textIn the course of research for The Shakers: A Bibliography many interesting new discoveries were made. Among them was an 1858 letter written by Shaker Elder Frederick William Evans of the North Family, Mount Lebanon, New York, to Alcander Longley, the editor of the Phalansterian Record, published from his own Fourier Phalanx in Dearborn, Indiana.
We herewith present Evans’s letter in full, as it contains interesting evidence regarding the Shakers’ theology and the role of Ann Lee. Additionally, this three-way exchange illuminates the lively discourse between the Oneida Perfectonists, (who owed much of their social practice to Fourierism and Associationism), with one of the last stalwart Fourierists in Alcander Longley, and the Shakers, who were always interested in the religious and social practices of their fellow communitarians
Archaeothanatology and Museum Communication: Both Alike in Dignity
No full textRomania during the Bronze Age was full of dynamic social change and the emergence of social inequality, not in the least due to the combination of the migrating Yamnaya population with existing Cotofeni and local communities, creating a blend of ritual practices within which contain a variety of funeral practices. Some of this funereal variation appears in how post-mortem manipulation is expressed in mortuary contexts. Excavations at Râmet-Gugu, a Early Bronze Age tumulus site in the mountains of Transylvania, Romania, revealed a burial. With an initial hypothesis surrounding post-mortem manipulation of the remains, archaeothanatological analysis reveals a complex process surrounding internment